Talk:Cosmological argument

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Everything that exists must have a cause.

Who says "Everything that exists must have a cause." instead of "Everything that begins to exist must have a cause."? Wikipedia currently has "Every finite and contingent being has a cause." --Yqbd 04:53, 9 December 2007 (CST)

The "begins to exist" clause is a cop-out to avoid having to answer the question, "who or what created God?".

To repurpose Paley's watchmaker argument: suppose that you're walking through the woods and see a watch lying on the ground. You might wonder how this complex device came to be there, how it was created, and so forth. If a native came up and told you that the watch had always been there, would you nod in satisfaction and move on?

Of course not. Because the real question is "what is the explanation for this phenomenon?" It doesn't make sense to have an exception for eternal phenomena.

The universe began to exist?

In the opening line, "it does so based on the fact the universe began to exist", did it? How do we know it hasn't existed forever? Isn't a counter apologetic to that that the person is assuming the universe did begin to exist, which no-one can possibly know right now, thereby invalidating their claim? Aardvark 07:17, 17 June 2009 (CDT)

The kalam argument deals with this contention, actual infinities are attacked and big bang models are used as well as counter-attacking atheistic objections. It is an extensive topic so spotting the flaw in the argument is not as easy as it seems. Craig, however, is completely irrational but his debate techniques cover that up. _Wissam.

Swinburne's inductive cosmological argument

Swinburne distinguishes between two varieties of inductive arguments: those that show that the conclusion is more probable than not (what he terms a correct P-inductive argument) and those that further increase the probability of the conclusion (what he terms a correct C-inductive argument).

Swinburne combines design/fine-tuning with the cosmolgical argument and adds 'explanation is better than no explanation; the finite or infinite existence of the universe would be a brute fact, devoid of a scientific explanation, if we only presuppose scientific explanation'. Arensb ^^ commented in the same way with his Paley's watchmaker argument.

This is a weak argument but its complex and professional development is deceiving. Swinburne's argument should definitely be mentioned here.

I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers

This article on the cosmo arguments is nothing but pure straw man. Not a single cosmo argument has EVER said that everything must have a cause.Cosmo arguments can be broken up into Thomistic, Leibnizian, and Kalam. Thomistic argues that contingent things need a cause, Leibniz is similar, and Kalam argues that things that begin to exist need causes. It really needs to be re-written from scratch.... Hammiesink 23:49, 24 March 2011 (CDT)

Not a single cosmo argument has EVER said that everything must have a cause.

That's odd, because we get it all the time. At worst, the article ought to address the different variations.

Really? From who? From Leibniz? From Aquinas? Nope. They're dead and they never argued that way. From Craig? He's alive, and he never argued that way either. Who is presenting cosmo arguments with such an incredibly stupid premise? Ohhhhh. I bet you're talking about lay theists who have misunderstood the arguments. So this article battles a strawman inadvertently created by theists. Hammiesink 14:37, 25 March 2011 (CDT)

You don't appear to understand the purpose of this site. It's to address the arguments brought up by theists/apologists, whether they're parroting the deep philosophies from historical figures, or whether they're botching them and creating their own versions, or coming up with something as inane as "look at the birds and the trees". In this particular case, we hear the "everything has a cause" from pretty much every theist who tries to use the argument. Thus, those versions are addressed. If an article doesn't address a topic or subtopic, it's because either it hasn't come up yet in our dealings with theists, or no one has bothered to write it yet. --jt 14:45, 25 March 2011 (CDT)

I think, that based on the principle of charity, the best way to argue is this: interpret your opponent's argument charitably; if he has fallacies in his argument, reformulate so it is as good as it can be; if you can think of something they could do better, then change it for them; and THEN knock it down. I.e., if the purpose of this site is to do battle against lay theists, then I believe the articles should be written with the intent of correcting the lay theist misunderstanding followed by a knock down of the REAL argument, like this: "It is popularly believed that cosmo arguments argue that everything needs a cause; however, this is not what they do. Instead, they argue that yadda yadda and blah blah blah. And they don't work because of X, Y, Z." Hammiesink 16:04, 25 March 2011 (CDT)

Do things exist with no cause?

The Fibonacci Series might be worth considering. It proceeds thus: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8... Endlessly; each number is the sum of the two prior. OK-FINE, but, where did the first '1' come from? An infinite series of ZEROS does not add up to a 1! Granted this is in the context of math, but math is a part of reality, is it not? -Deliberatus 17:57, 31 August 2014‎

Interesting idea. I think your point is that an infinite series of numbers does not have to be infinite in both directions. On the other hand, the sequence could be extended to the left to make: .... -55, 34, -21, 13, -8, 5, -3, 2, -1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 .... which are the negafibonacci numbers. It is interesting that a number pattern can suddenly change its behaviour significantly beyond a certain point. The concept also reminds me of proof by logic and God created numbers. --Tim Sheerman-Chase 15:08, 1 September 2014 (CDT)